Twitter Verifies NY Times Writer Sarah Jeong After Outrage Over Old Tweets

Twitter put their thumb on the scale over the controversy surrounding Sarah Jeong, officially verifying the newest member of the New York Times editorial team earlier this week.

Jeong, who spent most of her existence online without official verification as a senior writer at The Verge and elsewhere will now enjoy the all the algorithm privileges afforded to the platform’s elite group of blue check holders. She was not verified as of Aug. 13, 2018, according to an internet archive snapshot.

A spokesperson for Twitter told TheWrap that the request for verification came in through The NY Times, which was standard for their reporters and that it subsequently went through the normal verification process.

While Twitter has gone through various forms of distributing the coveted blue check, it has increasingly become a mark of endorsement by the social network, particularly after the company began to “unverify” accounts from people they deem as hate figures.

Richard Spencer, Laura Loomer and Louis Farrakhan have all lost their blue check marks over user concerns that they were promoting hateful content. Wikileaks chief Julian Assange has never received the honor at all despite clearly being a figure of public interest and publicly complaining about it to his more than 750,000 followers.

While the company officially says the check is not an “endorsement,” it also “reserves the right to remove verification at any time without notice,” according to the company’s official guidelines before going on to cite a list of behavior that is forbidden on the platform and presumably override whatever standard was used to grant a verified account’s check in the first place.

Jeong stirred outrage earlier this month after she was hired by the New York Times when old tweets emerged of her making a number of anti-white statements. Critics immediately seized on the comments as evidence of racism and the Times faced a lengthy campaign against her.

Subsequent disclosure also revealed several disparaging comments she made toward her new colleagues on the editorial board including Paul Krugman, David Brooks and Tom Friedman — who she said she wished she could fire.

The Times has released a careful statement over the issue in which said they stood by Jeong while distancing themselves from her remarks. There was no official condemnation or apology from either the paper or Jeong.

“Her journalism and the fact that she is a young Asian woman have made her a subject of frequent online harassment. For a period of time she responded to that harassment by imitating the rhetoric of her accusers,” the Times said. “She now sees that this approach only served to feed the vitriol that we too often see on social media. She regrets it, and the Times does not condone it.”

Public criticism of Jeong’s hire at the times by Times employees, however, appears to be strictly forbidden. After Elizabeth Williamson, feature’s writer, for the paper rebuked Jeong after her hire — the outrage mob descended and an apology swiftly followed.

“I just deleted my earlier tweet about this column. It was inappropriate,” Williamson said in a statement. “I apologize.” she said, while also included a link to Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens’ piece in which said he was willing to look past the Jeong outrage.

9 Times New York Times Editorial Made Everyone Freak Out

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Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now

The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts

2 of 12

Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

David Brooks: 'Girl I Want Your Body'

New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks offered his spin on the MeToo movement in November. But his attempt to speak the language of sex and passion led him to write some lines like "girl I want your body" and "sex is a gold nugget" and the Internet went nuts.

3 of 12

Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

Bret Stephens' "A Defense, of Sorts, for Harvey Weinstein"

The October, 2017 piece was actually titled "Weinstein and Our Culture of Enablers," but Stephens couldn't resist throwing in the trollish alternative headline see above into a tweeted description of the article -- which promptly precipitated an Internet meltdown

5 of 12

Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

David Brooks set passions aflame after urging "respect" for gun owners after 17 children were killed at a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. "So if you want to stop school shootings it's not enough just to vent and march. It's necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points," he wrote.

6 of 12

Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

Quinn "Been Friends with Various Neo-Nazis" Norton

The New York Times got more than they bargained for when they hired tech writer Quinn Norton. Almost immediately after the news was announced old tweets began to emerge including where Norton said she had "been friends with various neo-nazis" and used the N word. The Times cut her loose just hours after she was hired.

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Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

Bari Weiss Attacks Aziz Ansari Accuser: 'I'll Get Crushed for This'

Weiss risked more wrath on the set of "Morning Joe" in January after blasting a woman who accused comedian Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct. "It's called bad sex," she told Joe and Mika. "I'll get crushed for saying this."

9 of 12

Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

Bari Weiss Quotes Hamilton: 'Immigrants: We Get the Job Done"

Anti-Weiss Internet mobs were set ablaze after she tweeted out "Immigrants: we get the job done," in response to Olympian Mirai Nagasu's triple axel. Nagasu was born in California to immigrant parents and Twitter furiously dragged her for not paying sufficient deference to the decision.

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Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

James Bennet Diversifies the Times Opinion Pages

Editorial Page Editor James Bennet has said his mission is to broaden editorial diversity on the Times newsroom. The initiative has often been rocky and the paper has been beset by online criticism of hiring choices, and targeted leaks by Times employees unhappy with his changes.

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Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages

David Brooks Sandwich-Shames Less Educated Friend

Perhaps most egregious of all in the mind of Internet warriors was Brooks' confession in a July, 2017 column that he once took a friend "with only a high school degree" into a gourmet sandwich shop but decided to pull a quick switch for Mexican food after, so he said, she appeared overwhelmed by words like Soppressata and Capicollo.